Calculator Answers the Question: Are You a Gentrifier?

"Have you ever found yourself eating a maple bacon donut on a Citi Bike en route to Whole Foods after an exhausting yoga session and wondering: Am I a gentrifier?"

So begins a possibly, somewhat tongue-in-cheek article by Chris Kirk for Slate that promotes a "Gentrifier Calculator." According to Kirk's definition, "Gentrifiers are people with medium or high incomes moving into low-income neighborhoods, attracting new business but raising rents, and often contributing to tensions between new and long-term residents."

The calculator, which runs the numbers on your (yes, you) income compared to median income for your zip code and the median income of your metropolitan area. While it calculates, the screen ponders, "Opening a wine bar," "chasing a taco truck," and "having brunch."

On a more serious note, the post notes that there is no universally accepted definition of gentrification, but called on Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor of public policy and urban planning at New York University, in finding the formula for the calculator. "For the purposes of this calculator," explains Kirk, "Ellen suggested this formula: If your neighborhood’s median income is lower than the median income of your city, and your income is higher than your city’s median, you’re a gentrifier."